


break curses (not hearts)

by heliantheae



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 09:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18635800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliantheae/pseuds/heliantheae
Summary: Blaise wakes up to the sound of urgent knocking on the door of his flat. He fully expects it to be an Auror, come to inform him of—and question him about—the death of his most recent stepfather, so he takes his time pulling on a pair of silk boxers and locating his slippers and robe. By the time he answers the door, holding an unlit Muggle cigarette for dramatic effect, the knocking has reached almost deafening levels.Or, Blaise didn't see any of this coming. It works out anyway.





	break curses (not hearts)

Blaise wakes up to the sound of urgent knocking on the door of his flat. He fully expects it to be an Auror, come to inform him of—and question him about—the death of his most recent stepfather, so he takes his time pulling on a pair of silk boxers and locating his slippers and robe. By the time he answers the door, holding an unlit Muggle cigarette for dramatic effect, the knocking has reached almost deafening levels. He opens the door. Theodore Nott, who had evidently been propped against it, falls through. Hermione Granger makes an effort to catch him, fails, and eyes Blaise and Blaise’s exposed abs sheepishly. 

“Granger,” Blaise says.

She makes a face, “Hey, Zabini.”

The both look down at Nott. “No offense,” Blaise says, “But this is a terrible early Christmas present.”

Nott groans. 

“I’m sorry,” Granger tells him. “I didn’t know where else to take him.”

“A drunk tank?” Blaise suggests.

Nott smells strongly of tequila and probably looks regretful, but Blaise can’t tell for sure since the other man is face down in his plush carpet.

“That’s where I got him,” Granger confesses. “He called me to come pick him up, but then wouldn’t tell me where he lived and I don’t want him on my couch because the tabloids would have a field day and Ron would have a fit.”

“So you brought him here…?” Blaise prompts.

“I remembered that you were close at Hogwarts. And this was the only address he would give me,” she grimaces. “He threw up on my shoes.”

He fully expects never to see her again after that. He throws Nott, who is indeed very regretful, out the next morning and goes back to managing the Zabini vineyards and scanning the obituaries for his stepfather. It’s been almost two years. He thinks maybe his mother has gotten soft.

#

He’s in France managing the latest crisis—an infestation of gnomes with a taste for grapes—when he spots Granger outside of an antique shop, haggling cheerfully with the owner. Well. She’s cheerful. The shop owner is looking less and less pleased by the second. He ambles over.

“Granger.”

She smiles. The shopkeeper bows. “Hey, Zabini. What brings you here?”

“Gnomes. And a pretty girl like yourself?” he replies easily.

“Cursed jewelry,” she turns back to the shopkeeper. “I know human bone when I see it, and those earrings aren’t it. Fifty Galleons is the highest I’m going.”

He sighs, mutters something in French that isn’t complimentary, switches to English, and agrees to ship the earrings to Britain. Granger thanks him sincerely in perfect French, and he stomps back into his shop. 

“Honestly,” she sighs.

“Is that what you’ve been up to since Hogwarts?” he inquires.

“Irritating small business owners?” she asks.

He cracks a smile. “That, and the cursed jewelry.”

She nods. “I studied Cursebreaking at the Greek Institute of Magical Arts after I got my NEWTs. Now I’m doing research and some recreational buying and selling.”

“You should talk to my mother,” he says. “She has quite the collection and she’s very passionate about it.”

Granger lights up. “Does she? Would she be willing to meet with me? Does she have anything self-defense related? That’s what I’m researching. I’m working to develop affordable protection for women.”

“I’ll send her an owl and set something up,” he says, blinking a little at the barrage of questions and information.

#

He does just that, and he receives an owl from his delighted mother after the meeting takes place. She was enamored with Granger, who she referred to as ‘the lovely Hermione’ and had invested in the younger woman’s research within half an hour of meeting her. She had also issued a standing invitation to the younger woman for Saturday brunch, a rarity for his mother, who preferred the company of older, married women.

He turns up to brunch the next Saturday, dragging Nott, who had once again crashed on his couch. Granger is there already, holding a mimosa and eating a scone. “Blaise, darling!” his mother exclaims. “Hermione brought scones!”

Nott takes a mimosa and Blaise takes a scone. “This is amazing,” he tells her. “Did you make this?”

“Goodness, no,” she says. “Ron owns the Golden Bakery and I still live in the flat above it.”

Blaise frowns. “Where does he live? Aren’t you two engaged?”

The other women there are far too well-bred to shift uncomfortably, but Blaise gets the distinct impression they would, if it were something they were prone to doing. Granger just waves a hand. 

“We never even really dated. He, Harry, and I used to all share the flat but Harry is off gallivanting across the United States and Ron is living with Daphne Greengrass.”

Blaise frowns, feeling very out of the loop. “How did they meet?”

“Ron did the cake for the Malfoy boy’s wedding,” his mother explains. “He married Daphne’s younger sister. Daphne apparently spent quite a bit of time fussing about the cake, and they hit it off, as the kids say,” she smiles without a hint of her usual venom.

He’s starting to suspect his mother’s been replaced by some sort of benevolent clone. What were those fairy things that took the place of children? Did they exist for adults? Were they real? Blaise, never having planned on having children of his own, had not paid much attention. Changelings! That was it.

Blaise takes Nott’s would-be third mimosa from him and replaces it with a scone. “Ah,” he says, and is interrupted by the appearance of a balding man roughly sixty years of age.

“Angie, love,” Blaise’s miraculously alive stepfather says. “There’s an owl for you.”

Blaise’s mother claps her hands together. “Perfect! I was hoping it would come while you were here, dear,” she says to Hermione. “I ordered it from a shop I once frequented in Cambodia.”

“When were you in Cambodia?” Blaise asks, but his mother is already out of the room, trailing silk scarves and perfume.

He looks at his stepfather, who shrugs. “I’m Allen?” the man offers. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Blaise shakes the man’s hand and eats another scone while waiting for his mother to return. When she does, it’s with a small wooden box. “It’s lead-lined,” she says cheerfully. “Hermione, darling, you’re simply going to adore this.”

Even Nott, with his tenuous grasp on sobriety, shudders as she explains what the little trinket contained within the box does.

#

The next time Blaise brings Nott to brunch, his mother vanishes every mimosa in sight and hands him a mug of tea. Nott blinks at her, and then down at the tea. 

“Thanks, Mrs. Z,” he says softly, perhaps the first time he’s spoken to Blaise’s mother since Hogwarts.

His mother beams, “Don’t worry about it, darling.”

“It means a lot,” Nott tells his tea, intimidated either by the wattage of her smile or the attention.

One of the other women grumbles, and Blaise is almost relieved to see a hint of his mother’s usual viciousness flash across her face as she says, “Really, Doris, you ought to be thanking me as well. Alcohol is mostly empty calories and you were just saying how you wanted to lose a little weight.”

Allen might still be alive, Blaise reflects as he fixes his own mug of tea with a healthy helping of honey, but his mother is definitely still herself. All of the brunch guests are surveying their tea and holding very still so as not to attract her ire while she sits smugly at the head of the table. She’s clearly enjoying herself.

Hermione tumbles through the door just then, interrupting the silence his mother’s comment had caused. 

“Sorry I’m late! I was in Belgium and missed my Portkey. I have apology chocolate!”

“You would have been forgiven anyway, dear,” Blaise’s mother says, “But I’ve never said no to Belgian chocolate and I likely never will.”

Hermione grins at her, pats Nott on the shoulder, and kicks Blaise in the ankle as she makes her way around the table and finally sits down. 

“How was Belgium?” one of the other women asks, “You were after a pendant of some sort…?”

Hermione launches into her tale, which involves a lot of legally grey activities, leaping out of the sixth floor of a building and Apparating halfway through the fall, and squirting lemon juice into the eye of the man she had bought the pendant from when he tried to steal it back. “That’s why I missed my Portkey,” Hermione explains, “He accosted me during breakfast, which is why I had the lemon—for tea—and I ended up wearing most of my smoked salmon benedict.”

“I had hoped you had gotten caught up with a young man,” Blaise’s mother sighs, “But perhaps not quite like that. Are you alright?”

“If Bellatrix Lestrange didn’t kill me during the war, nothing will now,” Hermione informs the table in a stunning display of Gryffindor flippancy, “Got away without so much as a scratch.”

Blaise is...pleased? He’s pleased she hadn’t gotten caught up saying goodbye to a lover and missed her Portkey. He’s pleased, he realizes, because he _likes_ Hermione. He very nearly drops his head into his hands. He has a crush, like they’re back at Hogwarts or something. Well. He has considerably more confidence than he did when he was sixteen.

#

“Granger,” he calls as she’s grabbing her coat to leave, “Do you want to get coffee sometime?”

“Only if you call me Hermione,” she says, and smiles.


End file.
